Over the past 30 fiscal years, the federal government has run a surplus only three times. In the past three years, the government has seen deficits totaling almost $3.5 trillion, and the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) baseline prediction shows deficits for at least the next decade. With such a history and with the recent rise of the Tea Party and its fiscally conservative contingent in Congress, it is unsurprising that balanced budget amendments to the Constitution are once again finding their way to the national agenda. While forcing Congress to balance the books through a constitutional mandate may be appealing to many fiscal hawks, a balanced budget amendment could impede economic recoveries following Wall Street meltdowns and other calamities.
Corporate lobbyists and their allies in Congress have launched a systematic, coordinated effort to attack the federal government's efforts to boost innovation and protect public health, worker safety, and environmental quality. The attacks appear to have the Obama administration backpedalling on its agenda to provide meaningful health and safety standards to the American people.
The major piece of unfinished business from the last session of Congress is the fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget. Even though FY 2011 started on Oct. 1, 2010, the federal government still does not have a budget and has been funded through a series of 
A new health study found drinking water in 31 out of 35 U.S. cities contaminated by a dangerous form of chromium known as hexavalent chromium. Another study found that hexavalent chromium, a known carcinogen when inhaled and a suspected carcinogen when ingested, often contaminates water leaching from coal ash impoundments. The revelations expose the need for greater monitoring of public drinking water and stronger protections against contamination.
At the outset of the 112th Congress, both the House and Senate have adopted new rules to increase the transparency of their activities. The Senate will end its practice of "secret holds," where one senator could anonymously forestall proceedings on a bill. Meanwhile, the House adopted a variety of transparency reforms, including posting bills online for three days before voting on them and disclosing more information about committee actions.
On Jan. 18, President Obama issued a long-awaited executive order on the regulatory process and two related presidential memoranda. The order and the memos are aimed at reaffirming the existing regulatory process rather than significantly reforming it. The most impactful of the three documents is likely to be the memo on regulatory compliance, which stems from the administration's commitment to greater government accountability.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Jan. 19 in a case that could have far-reaching ramifications for public access to corporate-related information. AT&T, fighting to prevent disclosure of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) files investigating the company, has argued that releasing the documents under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) would damage the company's privacy. This argument comes despite the fact that the expectation of privacy has long been recognized only as an individual right, not a corporate one.
The Obama administration continued revamping offshore oil drilling regulation by recently announcing the next step in its plans to reorganize the Department of the Interior – creating a new agency to oversee drilling safety.
As the 112th Congress convenes, a renewed battle over the role of government in protecting the public is being waged. The battle reflects the decades-old myth that regulations are "job-killers" and that government must either sacrifice jobs to provide public safety or sacrifice lives, health, and environmental quality to protect jobs.